1) Rebates from manufacturers like Sony, Hitachi, Symantec and other mainstream product brandnames are reliable. The more troublesome rebates come from the retailers, like Frye, who may continue posting a rebate offer for a product beyond its expiration date, then deny the rebate ever existed. But whatever the rebate offer and source, be sure to read the fine print and follow directions when submitting your rebate request.
2) The biggest problem with drives of IBM's design occurred with the 75 GXP, which was an attempt to use five platters instead of three. Once the complaints and lawsuits were publicized, the detriment to IBM"s reputation was an exaggeration. There were even lesser problems with the 60 GXP drive, but we have three of those still running in this family -- two in RAID 0 -- for three and four years, and there has never been a problem with them. My cousin also had one which I later required after it had been "recovered" through a software utility. His problem was frequent power outages and insufficient battery backup for his computer systems, and this may have led to the failure he experienced -- and my "freebie" in acquiring his drive.
3) The Hitachi drives have always scored well in the revlews, even those which had been manufactured before Hitachi took over the IBM hard-drive division. Whether SATA or PATA should not matter -- only the performance and performance specs.